


Tintin and the Dragon-tamer's Shield

by kameo_chan



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (2010), Tintin - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Humour, M/M, Probable Historical Inaccuracy, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-29
Updated: 2012-05-29
Packaged: 2017-11-06 06:16:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/415684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kameo_chan/pseuds/kameo_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Haddock line is very, very old indeed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tintin and the Dragon-tamer's Shield

**Author's Note:**

> First things first. I was very lazy with this and did only the bare minimum of research. I had a lot of fun writing this though, and hopefully you will have as much fun reading it. Secondly, aforementioned half-arsed research courtesy of Wikipedia. I can't really justify that, so I'm not even going to bother trying. Be sure to read the extra notes at the end concerning my lazy research.

"Why, Captain! Come take a look at this!" Tintin exclaimed. It was a cold, dreary day out with little to do and so Tintin had wandered down to Marlinspike Hall's enormous cellar in search of excitement. There was always something new waiting to be discovered in the dark reaches, given that Nestor - bless his fastidious heart - had long since given up on tidying things up around the place due to Snowy's (and by extension, Tintin's) habit of sniffing out old artefacts that more often than not led to new adventures. 

"What is it, lad?" Haddock asked from around his pipe, ambling over to where Tintin rummaged. He'd been admiring a handsomely painted portrait of Sir Francis, the pirate scourge of the Caribbean. It was still somewhat of a shock to see his own face reflected back at him with such fierce and righteous determination and he wondered to himself whether or not some tiny bit of his forefather shone through in his own visage and whether or not Tintin could see it. 

"Something of import, no doubt," Tintin replied and held up an ancient looking round shield for Haddock to see, grinning toothily at him from around the iron-bound edge. 

"Looks rather old," Haddock agreed. "It's a wee bit too round for my tastes, though. Kind of garish too." Judging from the dull, faded look of the thing, it might have once been a virulent yellow.

"If my guesses are correct, this dates from around the 4th or 5th century." Tintin turned the shield over, not an easy feat considering it looked as though it weighed a good couple of pounds. "It looks to be Scandinavian. Probably Danish or Geatish in origin. Oh look, there's something written on the bottom!" 

Haddock watched, perhaps a bit more fascinated than he had any right or good sense to be by the way Tintin's hands slid along the shield's lower rim, brushing away a thin film of cobwebs and dust. 

Tintin's brow furrowed in concentration, a gesture Haddock found increasingly endearing the more he saw it. "It's a runic inscription," Tintin murmured appreciatively. "It reads: ' _The deathblow's defeat, yew's strong barrier wrought by the hand of the sea maiden's get._ ' It's a kenning, Captain." 

"Aye, I ken it means something, but what that is I'm not sure," Haddock replied, scratching thoughtfully at his beard. 

"No, no, Captain," Tintin laughed and flipped the shield over again. "It's a kenning, a sort of fanciful, intricate wordplay that was common to the Vikings and other Nordic peoples of the time. It's a bit like a riddle, but with the meaning hidden in plain sight." 

"What an odd thing to do." Haddock scowled, not even trying to hide his bemusement. "What kind of barnacle-brained son of a cisalpine Sassenach came up with that load of - " 

"There's more," Tintin informed him, holding up a hand to forestall his rant. "It's in a smaller script. Hmm, let's see." The tip of Tintin's tongue snuck out to rest at the corner of his mouth, soft and pink and strangely delicate and Haddock had to take a deep breath and a stout puff of smoke to keep from leaning in and just, just... 

"Blistering blue barnacles, lad! Can you not hurry up with your translating a bit?" 

Tintin startled and his tongue receded back where all good tongues belonged; firmly shut away and out of sight in his mouth. "Oh, yes. Pardon my manners, Captain," he said, gesturing at the shield. "The kenning here is a bit more complicated than the previous one. It says: ' _Borne on the arm of Stoic, sire of Hiccup of the sea maidens, who tamed the fiery tongue of the great worm's kin on the isle of the Thunderer's staves and had as scaled battle-bearer the dark daughter's swift fury._ '" 

"Are you sure you've not been in my liquor cabinet, Tintin?" Haddock asked dubiously. 

"Quite sure, Captain," Tintin replied, a familiar gleam in his eye. Haddock knew that gleam well enough by now to know that a trip to the library would be in short order. 

"To the library?" he asked, though he doubted the answer would be anything else. 

"Yes, Captain," Tintin smiled. "To the library." 

\--- 

Snowy snuffled an unhappy sigh and rested his head on his front paws with a long-suffering look. Haddock found he couldn't blame him. They'd been in the library for some time now, and other than the frequent rustle of turning pages and the murmured sounds of Tintin's interest being piqued by some small, doubtlessly obscure bit of knowledge every now and then, everything was as silent as the grave. Even the incessant pitter-pat of rain had subsided once they’d entered the sanctum of densely packed shelves and musty pages.

Haddock found his eyelids drooping and was attempting to stifle a jaw-cracking yawn when Tintin heaved away from the table with a great commotion that had both Haddock and Snowy up and expecting trouble in less than a stitch. “Great snakes!” his intrepid young friend cried, hoisting up the book he’d been reading and shoving it in Haddock’s face. “Just look at this, Captain!” 

“I’m looking, but I’m not seeing,” Haddock muttered dourly, squinting at the page. 

“I’ve figured out the kennings on the shield! The first one was easy, save for a spot of bother from the bit about the sea maiden. The second one was the tough egg, but I’ve managed to crack it wide open!” The book retreated to reveal a happy, beaming Tintin beyond it, gesturing excitedly at a paragraph about midway down the page. 

“The first kenning was a descriptor for the shield itself as well as its’ maker. _Sea Maiden_ is an old, rather unusual euphemism for cod. The old Nordic word for cod however was often also interchangeably used as name for haddock. Haddock’s get, meaning someone born of a person named Haddock. Don’t you see, Captain? That shield was made by a Haddock!” 

Haddock could feel himself gaping, mouth hanging open as though to catch flies. Tintin grinned at him. 

“That’s not all, my dear Captain. The person who forged that shield was named Hiccup, the son of Stoick. This book,” and he pointed at the paragraph again, “attests to a Viking chief named Stoick who lived in the early 5th century. He was chieftain of a tribe of Geatish Vikings on a small, isolated isle called Berka, or Berk. Berk is an ancient name for birch, a tree sacred to Thor – who was called the Thunderer!” 

“Tintin, lad; are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Haddock asked. He was feeling a bit faint, the way he normally felt when deprived of a good, stiff swallow of whiskey for too long. 

“I am, Captain. Or at least I’m more or less sure of it. Captain, it seems that you had Viking forefathers!” Snowy gave a boisterous bark that echoed through the library, startling a few nearby patrons and eliciting a grumble or two from the librarian, who gave them a beady glare. 

“Quiet Snowy,” Tintin admonished, petting the little dog’s head. “We’re not quite done yet. There is only one thing I don’t understand.” Again, a frown creased Tintin’s brow and Haddock reached out a hand to smooth over his forehead without thinking. The gesture was brief, no more than the slightest touch of calloused fingertips to smooth skin, but it was enough to set a warm rush of blood flaming in Tintin’s freckled cheeks and a bone-deep jolt of nervous awareness down Haddock’s spine. 

“Captain?” Tintin ventured, and Haddock drew back his hand as though burned. 

“Ah, nothing. You were saying?” He gestured at the book, waiting for Tintin to continue.

“Yes. Yes. The, um, bit I don’t really understand.” Tintin sounded dazed, and if it took him a moment longer than it usually did to compose his thoughts, Haddock pretended not to notice. Or to preen. Tintin cleared his throat once, twice and then seemed to regain a bit of his usual composure. 

“Yes. What bothers me about this last kenning are the bits about the great worm’s kin and the dark daughter’s fury. Great worm is a kenning for a serpent or snake, like the World Serpent Jörmungandr from Norse mythology. Thus following convention, their ‘fiery-tongued’ kin might be assumed to be dragons. But if that is the case, it would seem that whoever made this inscription wanted to imply that Hiccup, Stoick's son, had a dragon as a mount.” 

“How d’you figure that one then, lad?” Haddock asked; puzzled by the outlandish notions his supposed ancestors ascribed to. 

“Well, horses were prominently revered by the ancient Nordic peoples and often served to ride them into battle. Hence battle-bearer can be taken to mean a steed or mount. But no horse I’ve ever encountered has scales, nor have I ever heard of any that might have them. Take then also into account that _dark daughter_ was a popular kenning for the Norse personification of night, and you have the implication that Hiccup’s mount was a night fury; a supposed breed of fearsome dragon noted many times over in various North European folk tales.” 

_Night fury_. The phrase had a strange, mysterious air about, as though it would sound good rolling off the tongue. It might’ve made a fine ship name, even.

“My ancestors were dragon riders?” Haddock felt flummoxed. He tried picturing himself on some hideously scaled and horned beast, soaring through the skies whilst raining down doom on his foes from above, and found he couldn’t. “Dragons,” he chuckled. “Bilious boiling boar tusks, Tintin! Can you believe it? _Dragons_!”

“Steady on, Captain. It’s not a sure thing yet. But that does appear to be what the shield is trying to convey.” Tintin gave him a small, pleased smile that set something warm and fluttering loose in Haddock’s belly. “Perhaps our next adventure will see us exploring the Northern Climes in search for traces of the dragon-riders of Berk, eh Captain?”

Snowy gave another happy bark and launched himself off the table in a flurry of legs and tail-chasing, much to the librarian’s dismay. Haddock found he was grinning from ear to ear as well. “Perhaps it will, lad. Perhaps it will.”

*** 

“You really, honestly believe that some day someone’s going to bother reading that? Willingly?” Stoick asked, shaking his head. 

“Of course I do. ‘Sides, it’s only a matter of time before people learn how important reading is. Just you wait. Have a little faith in your descendants at least,” Gobber replied. “And after all, why not commemorate such fine craftsmanship? Hiccup even got the colour right this time! ‘S the perfect shade of yellow to match the wee lassie’s hair.” 

“You keep talking like that and she and that Nadder of hers will have your bollocks for breakfast.” 

“Oh, aye. And I suppose you’d let your daughter-in-law get away with that then?” Gobber only looked away from his handiwork long enough to give him a knowing leer. Beneath all the beard and bluster, Stoick suddenly turned a fetching shade of pink. 

“By Odin, that’s enough of your nattering. Get on with your engraving, you old troll wife,” he muttered, heading for the door. 

“With pleasure dear,” Gobber grinned; setting the branding iron to the wood again.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I'm no expert, but it's plausible that a 4th/5th century viking shield might have been hidden away in a cellar until the early 20th century. After all, I've seen people on those antique-appraisal reality shows bring in stuff that have the dealers keening. So a little bit of suspension of disbelief is all that I ask, good people.
> 
> 2\. Most written records of the Vikings date from the late 10th century onwards, when Christianity had already begun to spread and influence Scandinavian culture in various small, innocuous ways. I read somewhere that the HTTYD bookverse was supposedly set during this period. It doesn't really gel with the over-all theme however, and so I adjusted the dates to more or less the decline of the Roman Empire, which is when scholars estimate the Vikings to have experienced a cultural incline. 
> 
> 3\. Apparently, Berk is supposed to be a play on 'big jerk' or some such. I said bollocks to that and used the Futhark rune Berkano as a base for the name, hence "Birch". Besides, I see a lot more trees than I do actual assholes in the movie. *shrugs*
> 
> 4\. I know the bare minimum about kennings. No surprise there. 
> 
> 5\. Berk, according to Source, is located in the Scottish Hebrides. Apparently, this was what inspired the film's use of Scottish accents. I went with the Tintin movie and Andy Serkis' Scottish Haddock to cement the plot and implication. Subtle! 
> 
> Well, that's about all I can think of for now. If you spot any more niggles, feel free to drop a comment! Thank you for reading!


End file.
